Council Briefing 11121

Good morning, everyone.

The November 1st, 2021 council briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 9 31 a.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Alice.

Yeah.

Mosqueda.

That's it.

Peterson.

Yeah.

So want present Strauss.

Herbold.

Yeah.

What is here?

Lewis present.

and Council President González.

Here.

Nine present.

Thank you so much.

If there's no objection, the minutes of October 25th, 2021 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are now adopted.

President's report.

Really quickly, colleagues, I am Just a heads up that I will not be present next Monday, which I believe is November 8th.

So I will be moving this afternoon for an opportunity to be excused from that city council meeting at both our council briefing and our full council meeting.

Council Member Dan Strauss is the pro tem for the month of November.

So Council Member Strauss will be your council president pro tem at both the council briefing and city council meetings.

My huge thanks to Council Member Strauss for stepping up to preside in my absence.

I'd also like to recognize that today is Dia de los Muertos, or All Saints Day, where communities around the world, including in Mexico, where my family hails from, today is the day that we recognize and honor the passing of our loved ones.

And traditionally, we celebrate by setting up an altar to our past ancestors who have left us, lighting candles, bringing their favorite food, and sharing loving memories of the legacy of our ancestors in our present life.

So I hope for all of you that are celebrating Dia de los Muertos that you have a wonderful celebration.

acknowledging and remembering the lives and the legacy of your loved ones in my culture in particular.

We do this as a way to invite the souls of our ancestors back home and commemorate the celebration by acknowledging that we are celebrating with and in their presence.

So for all of those individuals who have lost loved ones, we acknowledge your loss.

Of course, COVID-19 pandemic this morning, it was reported has resulted in over 5 million people dying across our planet.

And this particular day of the dead is unlike no other given the amount of deep loss across all of our communities.

And so in recognition, colleagues, of the profound loss around the world that today marks the loss of 5 million souls and family members across the nation today, Day of Dead, I would like us to just commemorate a moment of silence to acknowledge the loss here in our own community, and in our global community, and to acknowledge the presence of all of those that we continue to mourn and love.

Thank you, colleagues.

I appreciate you participating in that, and I hope that we are able to send lots of energy to our community members who have lost people either to COVID or to other reasons.

in the last year in particular.

Shifting gears, Friday evening, colleagues, we all received notice late in the workday from Mayor Durkan, who issued a civil emergency order entitled Immediate Hiring Incentives for Public Safety Emergency Response.

This is a civil emergency order under the current Civil Emergency Proclamation, which she issued in March of 2020. to address the COVID-19 public health emergency.

For those of you who haven't had an opportunity to read it, which would be totally understandable since we received it Friday late in the workday, the order authorizes hiring incentives of up to $10,000 for new hires and up to $25,000 for lateral hires at the Seattle Police Department and the Community Safety Communications Center.

As a reminder, the rules provide that council shall, quote, endeavor to act, close quote, within 48 hours of the issuance of any emergency order.

But that, however, is not a constraining timeline, and the council may act outside of that timeframe to do three things.

The council may accept the emergency order, the council may amend the emergency order, or the council may reject the emergency order.

The council has a fourth option, which is to take no action, which is effectively accepting the emergency order.

So I want to ask that my colleagues spend some time with the emergency order.

I'd like to ask that colleagues direct any questions they may have related to the emergency order.

to central staff by the end of the day.

There are three individuals, excuse me, on central staff who will be fielding questions, if any, from council members.

So please send your questions to Director Esther Handy, Central Staff Analyst Ketel Freeman, and Greg Doss, as they are the primarily responsible for legislative analysis on this particular subject.

Central staff is going to collate all council member questions, again, if there are any, and refer them to the city attorney's office, mayor's office, or the Seattle Police Department as deemed necessary and appropriate.

So again, my request is that any colleagues who have any questions send those to Esther Handy, Ketel Freeman, Greg Doss, and to do so by five o'clock today would be greatly appreciated.

I apologize for this slightly expedited schedule, but if it appears to me, based on consultation with the central staff director, that the council would like to take some action, as previously described, then that does require us to act rather quickly to engage in any of that public discourse.

So again, I apologize for the quick timeline, but it is very necessary for us to turn this around quickly if the majority of the council appears to want to take specific actions.

So if you have any questions, please send those over to central staff by 5 p.m.

today.

I do appreciate you all agreeing to this course of action so that council is in the best position to analyze the order and respond to individual council member questions, if any, and then have a more informed judicious approach on what to do next.

Are there any questions, colleagues?

I'm not seeing any hands raised.

Thanks so much.

Longer than usual president's report for me.

I appreciate your indulgence.

I will endeavor to keep my actual committee report notes much shorter.

So with that being said, we're going to move to the preview of today's City Council Actions, Council and Regional Committees.

Again, the order for today's report outs will be Council Member Morales, followed by Mosqueda, Peterson, Salant, Strauss, Herbold, Juarez, Lewis.

And then I will conclude this agenda discussion.

So without further ado, I'm going to hand it over to Council Member Morales.

And then again, after Council Member Morales will be Council Member Mosqueda.

Good morning.

Good morning, colleagues.

Happy Dia de los Muertos.

My daughter has already set up our altar as she does every year.

I'm not sure how she decided that that was her job, but she loves to do it.

So yeah, we will be enjoying that today and remembering our family members and cats, lots of cats who have gone.

I have no committee updates.

We will have a community economic development committee meeting in December before recess, but we have not been able to finalize that yet.

So as soon as I have a final date, I will make sure to announce that.

My office is working to review our budget amendments.

We've got a few things that we might want to massage a little bit and then we'll be working to finalize over the next week.

We are hearing from a lot of constituents across our district and from folks across the city about their priorities and really, really want to appreciate the community organizations who have reached out to express their support, particularly for some of the infrastructure amendments that we have put in, as well as the kind of vision for a different way to do housing or another additional way for us to fund housing here.

Colleagues, I do want to address that yesterday there were two shootings in the Chinatown International District.

There was also two shootings last week in the Chinatown International District at the intersection of 12th and Jackson.

My office met with constituents last week to discuss the issues that are happening at that intersection.

We will be going out on November 9th to meet with business owners and neighbors and with street outreach workers to talk about strategies to improve safety in the surrounding area there.

And my office will also be reaching out to SDOT and City Light because one of the things we know is that there are several street lights that are out and have been out along South Jackson as well.

On Friday, I attended an organizing meeting with tenants from the Rainier Court Apartments here in the district.

Also attending were Council Member Sawant and organizers from two organizations that contract with SDCI to help tenants organize when they're facing issues, namely B-Seattle and the Tenants Union.

My office was contacted by organizers two weeks ago about ongoing repair issues, pest issues, restrictions on internet, excuse me, internet access, restrictions to common areas, and several hundred dollar rent increases.

Council Member Sawant also talked about this at last week's briefing, and I want to thank her office for working with tenants to submit their issues to SDCI and to the Office of Civil Rights.

After being contacted, my office offered to coordinate a meeting for these organized tenants to directly present their demands for these issues so that they could be addressed.

And we've also contacted the owner of the building, SEED, Southeast Effective Development, and we'll be sending a letter to them this week to reiterate my support for these tenants and to ask for these issues to be addressed immediately.

And this week, my office will be working to set the meeting with tenants and seed directly.

I do want to use this as an opportunity to voice my support for the tenants in this struggle.

It's important that they assert their rights to organize and to hold both the property owner and the management company accountable.

And I do want to affirm as well that as soon as the tenants have drafted and written their own letter making demands, I'll be happy to sign on to that letter as well.

Two weeks ago, my office also reached out to the mayor and to Deputy Mayor Washington asking for an update on the commitments that the mayor made to the Mount Baker community to several issues that they brought to her attention at a community meeting earlier this fall.

My office and these constituents are still waiting for that update.

And I feel we've been talking about this for a long time in these briefings.

This community has been very patient with the city since my office started organizing with them late last year.

but they shouldn't have to be so patient.

So I am asking the mayor's office to please respond to these constituents with an update on how the executive is working to address their issues.

Folks are very frustrated.

They are looking for the leadership of this city to act and to implement the things that they have asked for.

And so I'm calling again for the mayor's office to act to support this community with the things that were committed at that meeting.

Lastly, I will be holding office hours this Thursday from 10 to noon.

Constituents can sign up via my council website to schedule a one-on-one meeting.

That is all I have this morning.

Thank you so much, Council Member Morales.

Are there any other comments or questions for Council Member Morales?

I'm not seeing any hands raised.

Thanks again, Council Member Morales, for that important report.

Really appreciate your work.

Next up is Councilmember Mosqueda, followed by Councilmember Peterson.

Good morning, Councilmember Mosqueda.

Good morning, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

It's wonderful to see you all.

I want to thank you for your time last week while you participated in three days of discussion in the Select Budget Committee meeting as we were able to get through all of the submitted walk-on amendments and the amendments that you worked on with central staff that were submitted by the deadline.

Thank you very much, and I'm excited to have had that discussion and now be able to work with you on what is possible in this upcoming budget.

Your comments and your questions were very helpful for the next stage of this budget process which really frankly began over the weekend.

I want to thank central staff for their tireless work.

They have been taking the discussion that we ended on Friday at about 4 30 and have continued to work throughout the weekend to try to prepare the upcoming balance package for your consideration next week.

Our budget manager from central staff, Ali Panucci, and I will be working with my team and the central staff team to make every effort to meet with you throughout this week to make sure that we're discussing the budget proposals that you have submitted and to help identify with you the ways to possibly move forward on the ones that can make it into the balancing package.

This balancing package will be submitted to members of the public on November 12th, and will be published for public review on November 10th.

If you are massaging amendments, as Council Member Morales just noted, that really needs to be done today, today or tomorrow at the very least, as we are meeting with central staff today and tomorrow to finalize our amendments.

I just want to flag for folks, unless you're talking about amendments to the chair's balancing package, those amendments needed to have been completed last week.

If there are any last minute changes that you are working on or have thought about over the weekend and changes the ask or the policy, please do get in touch with that central staff lead ASAP as those conversations with my office and central staff really are happening today and tomorrow.

I want to thank you all for the presentations that you provided on your amendments.

Obviously, there's so much need in our community right now, especially in the wake of COVID.

I do wish that every single one of those amendments were folded into the original proposal that was sent to the city council.

However, this is our opportunity to now identify amendments that we'd like to see and how it balances with the initial information that we've received.

The next thing that we have to do is make sure that we're aligning our revenue with the actual revenue forecast that will be presented midweek this week.

I believe the revenue forecast is shared on Wednesday, and this will be our opportunity.

opportunity to recognize and realign whatever forecast projections are shared on Wednesday with what the assumptions were in the mayor's proposed budget.

As you'll remember, a month ago we had a discussion with central staff and with the city budget's office about those revenue forecast projections.

Some of those conversations were the first of the discussions that were held in our select budget committee meeting to really set the stage for how we would be building a budget based on those anticipated revenues.

At the time, many of us raised concerns and questions about the use of baseline forecasting when in previous years we had used the pessimistic forecast.

Given the unknowns of the economic indicators at the national level, which we discussed, and the continuous waves of COVID, we had raised concerns at the time about how this could potentially pencil out for the 2022 budget.

And so on Wednesday, we'll get the chance to see if there's If there is new information on how accurate those revenue projections were, and we need to be able to take time to consider how those actual projections factor into the proposed budget in front of us.

I look forward to continuing to work with all of you to make sure that we can provide a package for the council's consideration next week.

And again, our deadline for sharing that with council and members of the public is November 10th.

On November 10th at 5.30 PM, we will then have a chance for a full community public hearing.

This will be an opportunity for folks to engage in providing feedback and comments, what they see, what they'd like to see in the council's final budget.

We encourage folks who have not had the chance to sign up for public comment to make sure that they go ahead and do so.

Starting at 3.30 p.m., two hours before the public hearing on November 10th, you can sign up.

The sign-up sheet will be available at the council's website.

And we will make sure to hear from everyone who has signed up.

So colleagues, again, another long night on November 10th, starting at 5.30 p.m.

For members of the public, if you're listening and you need language accommodations, please make sure that you contact my office by Friday, November 5th, that is this week, to share with us your request.

I only know a little bit of Portuguese, but I know some Spanish.

I will only be able to translate this into one other language.

And we will put information out on our website as well and social media about how to contact us if you request additional language translation before Friday.

November 5th, so we will have that information translated and provided to you on our social media, so I'm encouraging folks to share that.

Again, look forward to both hearing the revenue forecast on November 3rd, I believe, having our budget deliberations internally worked up so that we can share a draft council budget with all of you on November 10th.

we will then have an opportunity to hear from members of the public November 10th at 5 30 p.m.

and then again on Friday, excuse me, on Friday November 12th we will have the opportunity to have all-day conversations with our council colleagues to walk through various items in the budget.

That means the next opportunity for the council's deliberation on the draft budget package will be November 18th and November 19th, where we will have the chance to hear possible amendments, and we will have the opportunity to have another public hearing on November 18th at 9 30 a.m.

I want to thank you all for the work that you're doing.

We are, I believe, in week six of eight.

So, um, and finish the lines here.

Thanks for all you do, colleagues.

Thank you so much, Council Member Mosqueda, for that.

Are there any comments or questions?

I was going to joke around and have Council Member Mosqueda translate a sentence into Portuguese since she stated she knows a little bit of Portuguese.

No, thank you.

Got it.

All right.

If there are no questions for Council Member Mosqueda, we'll keep going down the line.

Next up is Council Member Peterson, and then after Council Member Peterson is Council Member Swann.

Good morning, Council Member Peterson.

Good morning.

Thank you, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

Our city's Transportation and Utilities Committee has no items on this afternoon's full city council agenda.

Our committee meets on the first and third Wednesdays of each month at 9.30 in the morning, except during fall budget season.

So our next meeting will be on Wednesday, December 1st.

We will also have a meeting on December 15th.

That concludes my report.

Thank you.

Short and sweet.

Thank you so much, Council Member Peterson.

Any comments or questions?

hearing none.

Next up is Councilmember Sawant.

And then after Councilmember Sawant will be Councilmember Strauss.

Good morning, Councilmember Sawant.

Good morning.

The next meeting of the Sustainability and Renter's Rights Committee is scheduled for November 30th at 2pm.

where my office will present and with the assistance of central staff present the legislation that my office has drafted for rent control citywide and possibly we will also have a legislation related to sustainability issues.

We are working currently as I've informed the council with the central staff on preparing that.

As I reported last week, my office was contacted by several tenants at Rainier Coat, which has just under 600 tenants, I think, so it's a big complex of four buildings near the Mount Baker neighborhood owned by Southeast Effective Development, or SEED, which is a non-profit.

And the property manager is a company called Coast, which is a for profit company.

These renters have struggled in vain for years to get the owners and property managers of their buildings to address their concerns.

The renters are working people who make our city run.

They are seniors.

They are families with children.

An overwhelming number of them belong to communities of color.

The vast majority of the tenants are low income.

They are eligible for assistance under Section 8 Housing Voucher Program.

They have attempted for years to address pervasive problems in the apartment, such as lack of heating, mold, bed bug, and cockroach infestation.

Hallways with accumulating garbage, the absence of internet access for low-income residents, broken stoves and refrigerators, non-functioning toilets and leaking ceilings.

For many of the renters, the daily reality of living in these buildings has become a nightmare.

Not only have both Seed and Coast failed to address the numerous problems and the housing court violations, many of them extreme, they've also sent rent increase notices to many of the tenants, and in fact, to most of the tenants, and the rent increases are at least $100, but we've heard from tenants that they're facing more than $100 rent increases.

The tenants are demanding no rent increases, and they're demanding all the housing court violations be fixed.

They're demanding that the property manager and the landlord end discrimination based on race, nationality, language, or otherwise.

And they're demanding that there is sufficient maintenance staff to address the repair concerns in a timely manner.

My office's community organizers have talked to more than 150 tenants.

We have doorknocked the buildings and we have also urged community support and that has resulted in at least 144 emails to Seed&Coast from renters throughout the city from community members who are outraged about this situation.

And on Wednesday, October 20th, my office joined the tenants at a very important rally they had organized where they demanded a redressal to the injustice that they're facing.

That rally was covered by Como TV, and it was also reported in The Stranger in the Capitol Hill Seattle blog.

and in the Emerald.

And following that, my office organized a press conference on Wednesday, October 27th, where we had absolutely riveting and moving testimony from the renters themselves, the tenants themselves on the conditions they are facing.

I mean, these stories are just stunning, but there are too many to share during the briefing.

I would urge council members to look at the blog from my office where we will be posting the video testimony of all these tenants.

But I just wanted to share one specific story from A woman I spoke to a tenant there, a black senior, a lifelong Seattle community member.

She faces a chronic medical condition.

She is on section eight.

She's a low income person and she has received a $240 rent increase.

I mean, this is just unspeakable the way these tenants are being treated.

So we have, you know, we have really started a major organizing effort with the tenants who are really to fight and win something substantial here.

I've sent an email to Council Member Morales, also to King County Council Member Zahilay, State Representative Harris Talley, State Senator Saldana, urging all of them to send the letter that I've sent to Seaton Coast or at the very least to send their own letters.

My office has also submitted hundreds of complaints on behalf of the tenants to the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections and my staff have also sent, have contacted the Seattle IT department to begin addressing a major, one of the major housing code violations and also violations of the rights of Section 8 voucher holders is the lack of low-cost internet, which has been absent.

The access to low-cost internet has been absent since 2017, and it is, I mean, obviously, it's an outrage in general.

Access to affordable broadband is a basic need now in our society, but especially during the pandemic year, for these low-income seniors and communities of color to not have access is just completely outrageous.

My office, as I said, has returned to Seed&Coast.

We have heard back from the Executive Director of Seed, who, as many might know, many in the City Hall environment might know, took over as Executive Director of Seed in January.

So he has been in charge for almost a year, but the conditions have not changed at all.

They've not improved at all.

And so we heard back from him asking if I could meet with him.

And my office has responded to him saying that, of course, I will, but I'm not going to meet with him privately, but alongside tenants from the Rainier Court buildings who, after years of being thoroughly ignored, should surely be given the chance to voice their grievances to see directly.

And we have offered him two different times this week and we're awaiting his response.

And I'm hoping that we are able to meet with him as soon as possible with the tenants.

Friday night, my office organized what turned out to be absolutely an electric meeting with the tenants of Rainier Court.

with at least 75 tenants, many family members, children participating, along with the Tenants Union and BC Seattle.

And as Council Member Morales mentioned, she attended for part of the meeting and I appreciate her joining us.

I really wanted to thank the community organizers and socialists in my office who have spent hours on many days in the last week and a half organizing with the tenants.

These courageous renters are ready to fight and they see the importance of not only joining together to fight back against the abuses of their landlord and their property manager, but to follow that up to also build the movement for rent control.

Now, this kind of organizing does put pressure on people in power.

And so the tenants are informing us that they have heard initial murmurs from COAST, the property manager, about fixing the code violations, which is very important.

It's clearly it's a testament to the tenants getting organized and not being isolated as individual tenants, but coming together as hundreds of tenants.

But the tenants also made it very clear at the Friday night meeting that while they want the housing code violations to be fixed, of course, but they are correctly outraged at the rent increases and they are not going to accept anything short of the rent increases being rescinded.

At the Friday night meeting, they have signed the signed a letter to that is addressed to sea and coast and to elected official local elected officials where they have listed their demands and that they're urging support from progressive elected officials in you know both in the on the city council but also in the king county council and the state legislature we will be circulating that letter once we get more signatures we want to make sure that we reach the many of the tenants who weren't able to attend Friday night but they have signed the petition for the demands as a whole.

Moving on on today's introduction and referral calendar is the legislation from my office requiring construction bosses to reimburse workers for the costs of parking that are currently paid by workers which is nothing short of requiring workers to pay to go to work.

Council members will have received hundreds of emails from construction workers and other working class people in solidarity with construction workers expressing outrage that no council member was willing to second my motion two weeks ago to introduce the bill and its introduction today shows the impact of that grassroots activism.

On today's introduction and referral calendar, the bill is being referred to the Finance and Housing Committee, chaired by Council Member Mosqueda.

My office has inquired with Council Member Mosqueda's office about which committee meeting date it would be discussed in, and I understand that the date has not been chosen yet.

As I have offered in the past, if Council Members are Unwilling to vote on this legislation at the full city council during budget, I'm happy to make space for it at the November 30th meeting of the Sustainability and Vendors Rights Committee, which I chair.

Referring it to the Finance and Housing Committee instead is also okay, as long as it will be scheduled on the agenda before the end of 2021. At the end of the year, all new council committees are formed, and I do not think that this important workers' rights legislation should be referred to a committee that will cease to exist before having a chance to vote.

Most importantly, I do not agree with moves by elected officials which are aimed to dull the momentum of the struggle, which obviously the struggle has momentum right now, especially following the courageous strike action by the carpenters and by construction workers speaking out two weeks ago in public comment.

So I am absolutely committed to making sure that the momentum that has been generated by workers fighting back and getting organized is not lost.

And so I really urge the council to make sure that we vote on this this year.

So as I said, it's fine to refer to the bill to the Finance and Housing Committee, as long as Council Member Mosqueda will find time for it in our December meeting agendas.

If in the future, it turns out that there will not be space for it on the finance and housing committee agenda.

Again, just to reiterate, I'm happy to at that time, read it for it to the sustainability and renters rights committee.

Late last Friday, as Council President Gonzalez shared a few minutes ago, Mayor Durkin issued an emergency order to reinstate hiring bonuses of up to $25 for new police officers.

Ironically, her excuse for this emergency order to give police even more money is the COVID-19 emergency.

Her argument is that because so many police officers are endangering the public by refusing to be vaccinated or wear masks, they need to give the police even more money.

First, let's be clear about the double standard we're talking about.

When the mayor advocates for hiring bonuses in the Seattle Police Department, the police are some of the highest paid workers among the city of Seattle employees making more than double what is paid to social workers like homeless service workers.

The mayor has claimed that she could not use the funding for shelter and tiny house villages that were that that ordinary people by pushing back and being part of the people's budget and also the solidarity budget won in the budget last year because there are not enough homeless service workers to staff new spaces?

Where are the hiring bonuses or just a decent wage for the impoverished homeless service workers who actually help people turn their lives around?

We see the mayor lamenting the rate of attrition among police officers.

Has she looked at the turnover among social workers because of how low their pay is in relation to the services they provide?

Most of the social service workers don't last a year.

So it should not be a surprise that there is low morale among police officers.

Over the last year, we saw the murder of George Floyd.

We saw the Seattle police filling our communities with tear gas, pepper spraying children in the face, running over protesters' heads with bicycles.

And all that is in addition to the usual level of violence done to communities of color and working class people and especially low income people and our homeless neighbors by repressive policing.

Of course, there is low morale among police officers when so many ordinary people are correctly outraged by the harm the police do.

The solution is not to pretend that those problems do not exist, and the justifiable outrage does not exist.

The solution is for officers to be held accountable for their wrongdoing.

And we have the police department continuing to use the police contract as an excuse for failing to hold the, we have the political establishment continuing to use the police contract as an excuse for failing to hold officers accountable.

Yet here we are in the middle of contract negotiations with the Seattle police officers killed and the mayor is offering the police extra money without an agreement on accountability in the new contract.

without even an agreement to be vaccinated like every other city of Seattle worker.

These are not the actions of elected officials who want to increase police accountability.

They are the actions of a political establishment that has spent the last several years attempting to manufacture a culture of fear to distract from their abject refusal to address the housing and homelessness crisis.

My office has requested the city council central staff this morning to prepare the legislation to reject this emergency order to give large hiring bonuses for police officers.

Obviously, if other council members bring similar legislation, I would be happy to vote on that instead.

But in my view, this emergency order is a terrible misuse of city resources that should be used for affordable housing, social services, and investing in our communities.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any comments or questions?

All right, hearing none, we're gonna go ahead and hear now from Council Member Strauss, and then after Council Member Strauss, we'll hear from Council Member Gold.

Good morning, Council Member Strauss.

Good morning Council President, colleagues here in District 6 and last week's District 6 office hours.

I met with 18 D6 residents, 6 from Ballard, 3 from Fremont, 3 from Green Lake, 3 from Greenwood, 1 from Finney, 1 from Tangletown, and 1 from East Ballard.

We discussed many things, including tiny home villages, homelessness, safe routes to school, GPS routing software for Seattle public school buses, universal basic income, pedestrian safety, public safety near Aurora, Woodland Park, and in Ballard, the Seattle Police Department's budget, the Woodland Park Zoo Agreement, and alternatives to policing.

Last week, my staff attended the Fremont Community Council, and I joined the North Seattle Industrial Association's meeting on Tuesday.

I also met with the medical examiner, following up on a D6 resident request.

As well, last week, a person died in the Ballard Commons Park.

and this report is deeply tragic.

I'm working with community leaders to bring a just care model approach to addressing the encampment at the Valley Park Commons Park and move people out of the park and into shelter and housing.

We cannot continue to let people suffer and die in our parks.

I want to see everyone currently living in the park brought inside as soon as possible and we are actively working to that end.

This coming week in District 6, I have D6 office hours this Thursday from November 4th from 2 to 6 p.m.

On Tuesday my staff will attend the Finney Ridge Community Council and on Wednesday the Wallingford Community Council.

My team will also be attending the North Precinct Advisory Council on Wednesday to hear from our new North Precinct Captain Kevin Grossman.

Captain Grossman is formerly of both the South and Southwest Precincts and will be taking Captain Stamphill's place as of today, November 1st.

Thank you Council Member Herbold for letting us have the captain.

I am looking forward to attending a live fire training for our recruit firefighters in East Ballard tomorrow.

So if you see flames up on 57th Street between 10 a.m.

and 12 noon, please know that this is a training fire.

I continue to hold operational coordination meetings with community leaders, government entities, and non-government mental entities to make meaningful interventions and impacts to address homelessness in specific places in District 6. These meetings will continue multiple times a week until the transfer to the Regional Homelessness Authority is complete.

and my other work last week, along with my fellow council members, we were in three intense days of proposed budget amendment briefings with 24 hours of committee.

A big thank you and immense appreciation to our legislative central staff for all of their hard work last week over the weekend and going forward through this entire budget process.

Last Wednesday, I had my regular scheduled meeting with Chief Diaz regarding a rash of local business break-ins in Ballard, Fremont and public safety issues in Crown Hill.

This coming week, I'll be focused on the next steps of the budget process.

We'll attend the PSRC Growth Management Committee, meet with SDOT Director and Parks Superintendent Jesus Aguirre.

As I mentioned before, we will have office hours on Thursday afternoon from 2 p.m.

to 6 p.m.

In the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee, there are no items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on today's full agenda.

There's one item from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on today's introduction and referral calendar, Council Bill 120213, which extends the existing moratorium on redevelopment of manufactured home parks.

We now have a plan to consider permanent regulations for manufactured home parks in December.

And I can't share enough my gratitude and thank you to Council Member Juarez for all of your work to get us to this final point.

However, even under the fastest possible timeline for passing permanent regulation, there would be a lapse between the expiration of the moratorium and the effective date of permanent regulation.

So extending the moratorium one final time will ensure that no manufactured home parks file for redevelopment before the regulations take effect.

I plan to have the manufactured home park legislation at full council for a public hearing and vote on Monday, December 6th.

And then also separately, there is a special meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee today after full council, or after council briefing, excuse me, or at 10.30 a.m., whichever is later.

We plan to vote on clerk file 314367, which is a contract rezone of 14302 30th Avenue Northeast.

I expect this meeting to take less than one hour.

Thank you, Council President, colleagues.

That is my report.

Thank you so much, Council Member Strauss.

Any comments or questions on that report?

I'm not hearing any.

Thanks again, Councilmember Strauss, really appreciate it.

Next up is Councilmember Herbold, and then after Councilmember Herbold is Councilmember Juarez.

Good morning, Councilmember Herbold.

Good morning, and thank you.

And Councilmember Strauss, I think you're going to find working with Captain Grossman to be a real pleasure.

He's very responsive and very, very helpful and served the Southwest Precinct very well.

So thank you for that shout out.

I just want to start off with the requisite no full council items from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee this week and no committee meeting this week.

As far as updates from departments under my committee purview, first with the Human Services Department, I just want to let folks know that the Seattle Relief Fund application process started on October 25th.

It closes on November 15th.

at 11 59 p.m.

there is 16 million dollars in direct financial relief available for low-income households impacted by the pandemic.

just as a reminder council approved this funding through the seattle rescue plan earlier this year.

On its first day, almost 10,000 applications were started and over 3,400 were submitted.

The Human Services Department and Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs are contracting with 46 community-based organizations on outreach and application efforts.

One-time payments between $1,000 and $3,000 are available per household.

And the application assistance is available in multiple languages.

And with the assistance of community organizations, you can find the list online.

If your household is low income and at least one person either lives in Seattle or attends school in Seattle or has an art studio or rehearsal space in Seattle, you might be eligible.

You can find more and apply at seattlerelief.com.

On the public health side of things, the city opened up a new vaccination hub in West Seattle's High Point neighborhood last Friday.

This was a collaboration between the city, neighborhood house, and the pliable mobile home, I'm sorry, mobile nursing teams.

And Pliable is an exciting new business that is owned and operated by nurse practitioners from West Seattle who saw a need at the beginning of the pandemic.

Thank you to our friends at Pliable and as for always the assistance of Neighborhood House in serving the High Point community as well as the broader community.

The West Seattle site is open on Fridays and Saturdays.

This site joins the South Lake Union downtown, which is open on weekends.

The South Seattle site is expected to be announced very soon.

The city run sites.

offer first, second shots, or boosters.

Once children under 12 are eligible, they will also be able to get vaccinated there as well.

Vaccination is always free, regardless of citizenship status, and registration is available, but it is not required at Seattle.gov forward slash vaccine.

free rides to and from vaccination free child care are offered separately with pre-registration and you can find details for those services as well at seattle.gov forward slash vaccine.

Just a couple words about the mayor's executive order from Friday evening.

Appreciate President Gonzalez laying out some of the process.

issues inherent in the executive order and opportunities for council next steps.

I want to note that while the mayor proposed hiring bonuses for police officers in the budget, she did not include hiring bonuses for 911 call dispatchers as is proposed in this particular emergency order.

The shortage of 9-1-1 dispatchers at the Community Safety and Communication Center is an issue that I identify in my budget amendment to the mayor's proposed budget as a part of an effort to study whether or not hiring bonuses would make sense for other positions in the city.

On numerous occasions, I specifically called out The need, as I understood it, for 911 dispatchers.

Those interested, Section 10.02 of the Municipal Code governs the proclamation of a civil emergency.

Just noting that as a point of reference for the listening public.

I also want to highlight that the dollar figures that would be necessary to fund the marriage proposal are different from what was included in the marriage proposed budget.

for bonuses for police officers only, a budget that we just received a month ago.

The proposal released in late September budget proposal included up to $7,500 for new hires and $1,500 for lateral hires.

This new proposed emergency order provides up to $25,000 for lateral hires and up to $10,000 for new hires.

So what was proposed in the 2022 budget is $1.09 million, meaning the inclusion of the increase of the cost of the bonus for both lateral hires and new hires and adding The funding for bonuses for 9-1-1 call takers at the SCC means that the mayor's own proposed budget falls far short of the likely cost of her proposed 2020 budget program.

And it's not clear whether or not funding in the 2021 budget is sufficient to allow the program to begin operating as envisioned.

Although I do recognize that the council left $1 million in the budget for SPD budget.

When we just recently made the midyear budget adjustment, I guess that will teach us to do that when asked to allow for some flexibility in the department budget.

I really feel like we should be dealing with this issue as part of the budget process.

I stated as much a couple months ago, and hope that that's how we move forward.

But in essence, this emergency order wouldn't have to amend the 2021 budget, but without sufficient fund source identified by the mayor for her own program.

So I want to lay out there that in considering 2021 funds in SPD for the salary budget, There were some that were not needed.

The council left about, again, about $1 million.

And then as it relates to the CSCC, whether or not there's sufficient funding in the 2021 budget now, that is something I think we need to take a little bit of a more careful look at as we move forward to consider whether or not we intend to amend reject or accept this emergency order was a vacancy rate assumed in the CSCC 2021 budget.

And that vacancy rate was about 15%.

That is less, I'm sorry, yes, that vacancy rate is less than what I understand CSCC is experiencing right now.

but is possible that there may be funds there.

But again, whether or not there are existing funds in the 2021 budget is one issue that I think we need to consider.

Whether or not there are sufficient funds in the 2022 budget to fund the mayor's executive order.

is something that I feel that we should be discussing within the context of the 2022 budget rather than as it relates to this executive order.

So that's sort of where I'm at and happy to take any questions that folks might have.

And just wrapping up here, I want to just make note that on item coming up this week, I do have a ferry terminal EAG meeting on Thursday evening.

I know a lot of Folks who live in the ferry neighborhoods have a lot of concerns and interest in the proposed changes to the Fort Lawrence Ferry and will be looking forward to attending that meeting and hearing more both from the community as well as from the Washington State Ferries and their proposal.

And then just closing out, I do have a proclamation that will be shared.

This is a proclamation for Family Caregivers Support Month.

November is Family Caregiver Support Month, and in recognition, we've been working with the Human Services Department's Aging and Disabilities Division to bring forward a proclamation recognizing it as Family Caregiver Support Month.

mayor is concurring.

And just as a little bit of background, Washington State Department of Social and Health Services estimates that there are 200,000 unpaid caregivers in Seattle and King County.

These are people who help someone age 18 or older who needs regular care to remain at home rather than moving to a care facility.

This proclamation recognizes family caregivers as contributors to the strength of families and communities and encourages individuals to provide regular respite for family caregivers if they're able and to learn about services that can support the physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

My office circulated the proclamation's numbers on Friday.

And if there are no questions, I think I should just hand it over to you, Council President, to walk us through the next steps of securing signatures on the proclamation.

great.

Thank you so much, Council Member Herbold.

We will do that now for the proclamation.

I do want to note that Council Member Mosqueda unfortunately had to leave at about 10.20 for a council budget related meeting.

So she will be asked if she would like to affix her signature to the proclamation during this afternoon's full council meeting.

So any questions about the proclamation?

Hearing no questions about the proclamation, will the clerk please call the roll to determine which council members would like their signature affixed to the proclamation proclaiming November 2020 as Family Caregiver Support Month in Seattle?

Morales?

Morales?

Yes.

Peterson?

Yes.

Sawant.

Yes.

Strauss.

Yes.

Herbold.

Yes.

Juarez.

Yes.

Luebis.

Yes.

And Council President Gonzalez.

Yes.

Eight signatures.

Wonderful, thank you so much.

Council Member Gerwald, anything else?

Yes, I was remiss in my opening remarks when I noted how much I believe that Council Member Strauss and his constituents will enjoy working with Captain Grossman leading the Southwest Precinct.

I did want to make a a public recognition of and welcome of the new Southwest Precinct Captain Martin Rivera.

I really look forward to working with him and I know my constituents will as well.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Herbold.

Okay, any other comments or questions for Councilmember Herbold?

Hearing none, we will continue down the line here.

Next up is Councilmember Juarez and then after Councilmember Juarez will be Councilmember Lewis.

Good morning, Councilmember Juarez.

Thank you, President.

Let's see.

I'm still having some computer issues, but I think we're okay.

Let's see.

Apologize.

I have four issues to speak on this morning.

I will be brief.

The Public Assets and Native Communities Committee, there are five items on this afternoon's full council agenda, and I would like to speak to them.

All five items are appointments to the Board of Parks and Recreation Commission.

In June, our 2021 MPD, Metropolitan Park District meeting, we approved legislation combining the Board of Commissioners and Park District Oversight Committee into what is now called the Board of Parks and Recreation Commission.

The intent was to streamline efforts originally duplicated in these advisory entities.

This afternoon's appointments are a technical shift to update the appointment packets to show the new advisory commission.

Board members are from the community who advise and make recommendations to the superintendent, the mayor, and the city council on parks and recreation matters.

This includes changes to park policies, development projects, and recreation programs and service.

Please know there are currently vacancies in City Council Districts 1, 4, 6, 7, and 1 citywide position.

That's vacancies in Districts 1, 4, 6, and 7, and 1 citywide position.

Application information can be found on the City of Seattle's Board and Commissions website.

Parks, let's see, between October 20th and October 26th, the Parks Shower Program served 177 people at six community centers.

Parks is partnering with the Office of Arts and Culture for the Arts in the Parks Program.

This grant program supports festivals or events that promote arts, celebrate diversity, build community connections, and activate parks.

The application deadline is December 1st.

See the Parks Department blog or our office for more details and information.

Seattle Public Library.

The Seattle Public Library is promoting the library levy priority survey to the community.

Survey results will help the library prioritize funds in the short term and through the remainder of the levy, which expires in 2026. The survey can be found on the library's website.

Native communities.

Along the lines of what you shared this morning, Council President, November is National Indigenous Heritage Month.

This month is a time to revisit the history and contributions of American Indians and Alaska Natives in education, art, literature, government, sports, science, technology, past and present.

With that, I'm excited to welcome Francesca Murna to the city as the Indigenous Advisory Council liaison.

Francesca is Shawnee and enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation.

Previously, she worked for the Seattle Indian Health Board, driving their policy and governmental relations work.

She worked closely with the Seattle City Council, our office, the legislative and the executive branch on missing murdered indigenous women and girls.

on the boarding school legislation, on the Violence Against Women Act, housing, health services, you name it.

We're very, very lucky to have Francesca in this new job.

Francesca started last week in her new position that this council created in last year's budget.

Thank you, colleagues.

The Indigenous Advisory Council will advise elected officials and city leaders regarding policies relevant to indigenous populations and local tribes.

Please join me in welcoming Francesca to the city.

Let's see, there will be a discussion and possible vote on the ordinance council bill 120188, which will create the Indigenous Advisory Council on December 7th.

That's our next public assets and native communities meeting.

An update for those of you regarding the contract or the agreement between the city and the Woodland Park Zoo Society.

That's the operations and management of the Woodland Park Zoo.

As you know, we had our last meeting on September 10th.

So I said, and I'm gonna be very clear about this deadline.

Amendments are due Tuesday, November 30th.

So if you're, we're looking at the contract between the city and the Woodland Park Zoo Society.

So please make sure you have time to review with legal.

So we've been negotiating this contract and discussing it since last summer.

Our last meeting was September 10th.

So I've given everybody a long runway to clear any legal issues that they may have or questions through legal, not me.

And our meeting is December 7th.

So you've had about three months.

And again, I believe deadlines mean something.

So if your amendments are not in after November 30th, then they're not in and we will not entertain them.

I'm going to end on a personal note today.

I want to thank Council President for teeing us off about what this month means, that this National Indigenous Heritage Month.

I think one of the things I wanted to share, because some of us are Native every day, all day, all the time.

The irony and the hypocrisy of what I'm watching now in this baseball game, of this chop, this camp thing, which is particularly sickening and saddening, because as we know, in 1830, President Andrew Jackson drove out and killed all the Native American people that lived in the state of Georgia.

And the last time we checked, the population for Native American people was 0.4%.

And so when they questioned the team leader about the racist nature of the chop and chant, I found it amusing and insulting and racist that his response was that they had checked with the Native American community.

Well, sir, they're not there.

You pretty much killed them all back in 1830. So that culminated in the Trail of Tears where we have all those folks that were driven out on foot and killed and one of the saddest chapters in our country's history.

So I'm going to explain, share something with you that I normally don't share.

First of all, I want to thank Dana and Joseph for three weeks ago, putting in our clips.

the death of Chief Earl Olperson from the Blackfeet Nation, who I've known Earl since I was a little girl.

He's a few years older than my mother.

We lost him on October 13th, and he was 92. Original speaker of the Blackfeet language, was served on as a leader on our council for more than 60 years.

He served his country honorably, and we had a four day period of mourning in which we buried him on October 23rd.

Um, everyone was there.

I couldn't make it as you know, but we also had former senators and governors and the current senators and governors.

And, um, when they took Earl out, his grandson, using his grandfather, Earl's drum, sang a traditional going home song, a Blackfeet going home song, when we say goodbye.

And it was very emotional.

If some of you want to go watch it, it's on YouTube.

And for those of us that couldn't make it home to watch, it was very emotional for me.

And so I do miss that drum and that song.

So the juxtaposition is this, when I turned on the TV last night and I have to compare what I know to be true as a song, to hear that idiotic, racist, chop chant that tells me that this country has not come that far in seeing us as human beings.

And I'm tired of it.

Like I say, when I hear that idiotic racist chant shop, I'm not just angry, I'm sickened.

So I don't need a Indigenous Peoples Day.

I don't even need a Native American month day.

All I need is this country and people to see the humanity in us and that we're still here.

And you would think after all of this, that things would change and some things just don't change.

So I'm hoping that I could share that with you colleagues, because I think you all know how I feel about some of those issues.

I often don't say a lot politically about some things, because sometimes I don't believe it's my place.

But this morning, I'm feeling that, and I wanted to share that with you.

So thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Really appreciate it.

Colleagues, any comments or questions?

Okay, I am not hearing any.

Again, Consumer Juarez, thank you so much for those powerful words and reminder of how far we've come in some ways, but how much further we have to travel in this journey towards true justice, respect and equity in our broader community.

And we know that when issues like the one that you just described happen, even outside of our city, it still has a huge impact on Native peoples across the country as one collective community and on all of us as allies to the Native community.

So really, really appreciate you lifting that up and putting down a really important challenge for us to do better and be better.

And I appreciate that.

Council President, thank you.

I just don't think it's that hard to ask people not to dress up as Indians on Halloween and not to do this idiotic racist chop chant.

Because it isn't just about being a snowflake, like, oh, that just hurts.

We've been dealing with these tropes my whole life, the redskins, the braves.

I mean, it's just bullshit.

I'm tired of it.

Sorry, shouldn't have said that part.

OK, I'm done.

I will go drink my tea now.

I hear you, Council Member Juarez.

Our culture is not a costume.

Thank you.

And every year we have to say it again.

Praise be.

Thank you, Lord.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

OK, colleagues, we're going to keep going down the line here.

Next up is Council Member Lewis, and then I will end this portion of this morning.

Council Member Lewis, good morning.

Thank you, Madam President.

I'll be brief so we can get to the Land Use Committee later this morning.

So, like everybody else, there's not really much legislating going on for the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments and like everybody here waiting with bated breath for Council Member Mosqueda's budget balancing package, which will be assembled this week.

This week, I'll also be doing a tour of the 911 call center, which is currently housed in the West Precinct and part of the Communications and Public Safety Department that this council created in last year's budget.

I will also be attending the Puget Sound Regional Council's Growth Management Committee meeting this coming Thursday.

And on Tuesday, I'm very much looking forward to celebrating the anniversary of the Pike Place Market PDA's creation at the ballot, which should be a really great opportunity to gather with members of the Pike Place Market community to commemorate that very auspicious decision that has really been a great example of civic placemaking in our city.

and looking forward to that.

But otherwise, Madam President, I don't have anything else to report this morning.

Thank you so much, Council Member Lewis.

Any comments or questions?

All right.

Hearing none, I will go through my report here.

Nothing on this afternoon's introduction and referral calendar or on the City Council agenda from the Governance and Education Committee.

Really quickly, last week, the Department of Education and Early Learning announced $945,000 of awards from the Families Education Preschool and Promise Levy to support five Seattle preschool program facilities.

These investments will support outdoor learning spaces, support design work, and permitting fees, and fund critical plumbing updates.

The classrooms supported by these awards are in West Seattle, South Seattle, Othello, and the Central District and downtown.

Our support is unique in this area as funding opportunities for early learning classroom facilities is very scarce at any level of government.

So really appreciate the fact that we're getting out nearly a million dollars worth of critical funding to address the ongoing child care needs in our city.

Additionally, last week, the Families Education, Preschool and Promise Levy Oversight Committee had its monthly meeting.

the Levee Oversight Committee received an update on culturally responsive specific, culturally responsive specific and responsive investments.

One example was the Kingmakers program where we partner with the Seattle Public Schools Office of African American Male Achievement to support and invest in black boys in middle school and high school.

Since 2017, 362 students participating in the Kingmakers program have received city support to improve education outcomes, develop as leaders, and positively affirm their identities.

So my thanks to Seattle Public Schools and DEEL staff for their very important work in this particular area and for making these investments, critically important investments, in these young members of our community.

I do not have anything else to report out on behalf of my office or the Governance and Education Committee.

Are there any other questions or comments before we adjourn?

I forgot about that.